Embracing Insecurity to Follow Your Dreams After suffering a career burnout, becoming a freelance writer and editor was less of a choice for me, and more of an ultimatum. But when a friend contacted me seeking advice about her own career change, I was forced to think about the actions and beliefs that led to … Continued
Guest Post by internationally bestselling author, Joanne Fedler. Aspiring writers sometimes ask me, ‘How can I write like you?’ The answer is, ‘You don’t want to write like me, you want to write like you. You want to find your writing voice, and that will be nothing like mine.’ But I get what people are really … Continued
When receiving your first ‘track changes’ document, you’re often faced with a jungle of blood-red lines, a rash of bubbles and pointy arrows that leave your thinking your baby’s been hacked at by savages. But once the initial horror has passed, it’s important to learn more about this fabulous feature. Microsoft Word’s track changes is … Continued
Show us the evidence, don’t Tell us to believe you. The old ‘show don’t tell’ rule is one of the most important for good writing, and once you understand it you’ll find yourself cringing over old work that suddenly appears obvious and overstated (I know I did). So, what is the Show versus Tell … Continued
4 Fast Rules for Mastering Dialogue Punctuation Punctuation rules, like all literary devices, are there to help the writer get a succinct, accurate meaning across. To discard the finer points of punctuation (in this case, the proper use of quotation marks) is like a sculptor wielding a sledgehammer. Messy, messy, messy. Use the following rules … Continued
How to find your theme, and make your story sing. Many writers shiver at the T word. After all, finding a novel’s theme sounds so intellectual, like a boring week of high school English you’d rather forget. But throw out your book’s theme at your own risk, because it’s the secret ingredient that will make … Continued
So everyone hates adverbs. But why? An adverb is a descriptor such as: She rubbed her eyes and said tiredly, “These adverbs are so redundant.” Consider that sentence. The word “tiredly” didn’t need to be there, because we already indicated she was tired by saying she “rubbed her eyes”. Recognizable by their ‘ly’ ending, adverbs … Continued